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When the Vegas odds came out that Charlie Strong was the 2-1 favorite to land the head coaching job at Texas, I laughed. I said there was no way that would happen. He may leave someday, but Texas is not the place for him. He had turned down Tennessee, we were heading into the ACC, and we had all the momentum in the world. Charlie wasn’t going anywhere…

Well Charlie went. I was shocked, mad, upset, disappointed, felt betrayed once again by a head coach that said he wanted to be here. I wrote all about how I felt soon after it happened. Soon after, Bobby Petrino was hired, and a new chapter was beginning. We would head into the ACC with Bobby, a fresh start for everyone. Things still stung a little bit, because I was just curious how Strong would have done with his guys heading into the new league.

More than 6 months later, things are a little easier for me now. I am 100% excited for Bobby Petrino to lead us into the ACC and do some damage. And on the Charlie Strong side of things, I am fine with his decision. He took one of the top jobs in the country. Louisville is not a traditional powerhouse or football school, and you could tell that’s what he wanted. So he got it, and it was too good to pass up. What made it hurt was buying into the thought that we had found “our guy.” He was going to stay here forever and build us up because he loved it here.

Kevin Ryan of 247 Sports released a Top 10 for new coaching hires from this off-season. The rankings are based on “past performance, fit at the new school, possibility of future success, and other criteria.”

Bobby Petrino was ranked as the 4th best hire. What sticks out if you look at the list is who is ranked as the 3rd best hire: Charlie Strong at Texas. What does this mean? Well, absolutely nothing really. But it’s July and these lists are fun to talk about sometimes.

Former USC quarterback Max Wittek is a name that we have been hearing for months now. He is transferring from Southern California and the main schools he has been considering are Louisville, Texas, and Hawaii. With Louisville and Texas being two of those, obviously this was of interest. Speaking of that, why don’t more kids consider Hawaii? Wouldn’t that be a fun place to go to college? Anyway…

According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Wittek will not graduate this spring, but he will in December. Had he graduated this spring, he could transfer with no restrictions and would have had two seasons to play, including 2014. If he transfers after he graduates in the fall semester, he will have to sit out the 2014 season and have only one year of eligibility left according to cbssports.com. That is, of course, unless he decides to transfer to an FCS (formerly Division I-AA) school, in which case he could play in 2014 without sitting out.

On Tuesday night, 5-star (rated by 247sports) small forward Ray Smith tweeted out his top 10 list of schools. The class of 2015 prospect is listed at 6’7 and 185 lbs and is from Las Vegas, Nevada. As a junior at Las Vegas High School, he averaged 24.7 points, 6 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game.

The major recruiting sites have Smith as a top 10 small forward in the country for the class of 2015. I am not sure if/when he will narrow his list more, but that is one that we will keep an eye on for sure.

Have I mentioned how much I miss Vance Bedford? He was clearly a fan-favorite while here at Louisville because of his personality. He certainly took that with him to Texas, and has also taken it to twitter. He kind of takes a little jab at Johnny Manziel, and then as you would expect, people start flexing their twitter muscles at Coach Bedford. The best is when they say something nasty to him and he hits them with the “lol”. This is just a small sample of all of his mentions. There are plenty more if you want to check them out. Miss ya Vance!

Remember the guy that didn’t really care for much media attention while here at Louisville? Not that there was much media responsibility anyway, but it just wasn’t his thing. For his hour long radio show once per week, he would usually do about half of it and then let another coach handle the rest. Surely you remember that version of Charlie Strong right?

Well the Charlie Strong of Texas is now going on a BUS TOUR around the state of Texas. It is sort of like the Cardinal Caravan here. That same Cardinal Caravan that (according to Eric Crawford) made 6 stops last year and Strong was on only one of those stops. He talked for about 20 minutes and then didn’t take questions from the media. I am sure he loves this whole bus tour thing, right?

Like most of my opinionated posts, this one will just be whatever comes to mind, and hopefully it ends up making sense. But who knows? This one could go all over the place.

First off, I would like to thank Charlie Strong. This program was near rock bottom when you took over, and you brought us back to being relevant again in a very short time. In your first season, you went to a bowl game after the team just went 4-8 the year before. We knew we were in for a good time from there. One of the best games I have ever been to was the Sugar Bowl. Teddy Bridgewater is one of the best players I have ever witnessed in person. So in your 4 years here, I saw some great things. And for those things, I say thank you.

Well it is official: Charlie Strong will be the next head coach at the University of Texas. Tom Jurich flew back from Colorado tonight to meet with Strong at his (Strong’s) home. Strong informed him that he has accepted the job at Texas.

In his 4 seasons at Louisville, Strong compiled a record of 37-15 and won the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Russell Athletic Bowl.

I will have a more opinionated post on this later on, but just wanted to get the official word out there. As always, and no matter what, Go Cards!

My goal here is to make sure we do not post every single rumor that is out there, that is not what we are about. But it is also important to keep you posted on the things that we are hearing that are credible. So that is what we will do. Like I have said before, many people are not on social media or can not check it all day long, so people can’t keep up all the time. So here are some of the latest in this whole situation…

In earlier’s post where we brought you up to speed on the Charlie Strong-Texas saga, I mentioned that it is likely down to Strong and Baylor’s Art Briles for the job. Now a new name is in the mix. There could actually be plenty of other names in there, but not that are really known. James Franklin (Vanderbilt) and Jimbo Fisher (Florida State) are also names you may hear. The latest is UCLA’s Jim Mora. The more candidates we know about, the better as far as I’m concerned.

Texas is interested in UCLA coach Jim Mora as a possible replacement for Mack Brown, per sources.

If you are on twitter a lot during your day, you have probably been keeping up with everything going on with Charlie Strong and the Texas job opening. So you will probably know all of this. However we know that a lot of readers either are not on social media or just do not keep up as much as some, so this is mainly for them.

While UofL has not come out and released an official statement (because there hasn’t been reason to), all of these things have been reported by multiple media outlets. So we believe them to be true. There are always crazy rumors when it comes to this stuff, so we will leave those out and just let you know what has been (likely) happening.

I have been out and away from the computer all day today, but I have been able to keep up with most of the news regarding UofL sports. So apparently Vegas set the odds for the next head coach of the Texas Longhorns, and Charlie Strong was the favorite at 2-1, which are great odds. Las Vegas is full of money and casinos for a reason, the odds-makers are usually right, and the betting public is usually wrong. For me on this one, there is no way I would bet on Charlie Strong going to Texas.